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Strike Witches: Perrine Clostermann 1/8 Scale Figure by Furyu

It’s another beautiful Anime Saturday here at FFZ and while I’d like to say I’ll be spending it split between anime watching and video gaming, the truth is I’ll be working most of the day. But at least I can still enjoy a little of the morning by having my coffee and checking out an anime figure. This time I’m going with another of Furyu’s “High Quality” Strike Witches.

The package design is similar to the Charlotte Yeager figure I looked at quite a few months back. The figure comes in a colorful box with windows on the front and top. There’s very little in the way of English here, but at least it tells you who the character is and the name of the series. Although, if you didn’t already know that, I don’t know why you’d be buying this. While the packaging is collector friendly, the cardboard on these boxes tends to be really flimsy, so I don’t know how well these will hold up to storage. The base requires some very simple assembly before Perrine is ready for display.

And here she is all set up and looking fantastic! If you aren’t familiar with the anime, Strike Witches follows the adventures of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, comprised of young women who cast magic, have animal ears and tails, and fly around with pants that look like WWII fighter jets. They’re also our last line of defense against an alien invaders.

Perrine is smartly dressed in her military-style blue tunic with gold buttons and striping on the sleeves. Her outfit consists of a fairly simple sculpt, but you do get some appropriate wrinkles, pockets, and the aforementioned buttons. The top features a slight billowing effect to suggest that she’s flying up high in the air and adds a little energy to the piece.

The portrait here is pretty good. I like her surprised expression and they did a wonderful job with her glasses. The bright yellow paint on her wild, windblown hair is a bit splotchy in some places, but it’s not terrible. Her eyes are perfectly printed with an unusual yellow shade that matches her hair. Perrine’s familiar is the French Chartreux cat, so she has black cat ears popping out from her hair and a long cat tail protruding from under the back of her jacket. The tail is tastefully done, which is surprising when you consider how much fan service is in this series. Seriously, if you ever want to die of alcohol poisoning just play a drinking game called shot for panty shot. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Perrine’s Striker Unit is modeled after the French Arsenal VG-33 light fighter. It’s not an aircraft that I’m all that familiar with, certainly not as much as Charlotte’s P51 Mustang-inspired gear, but it looks great. you get some deep cut panel lines, details in the engine, and a grey and olive green camo deco. The props are cast in a clear plastic and they do spin.

When not casting her formidable lightning based magic attacks, Perrine is partial toward wielding a Bren machine gun. The weapon is recreated here with a very detailed sculpt and nearly perfect paint job. It’s also easily removable from her hand so you can inspect it all over or even let a similarly scaled figure borrow it for a while.

The base here is pretty much identical to the one that came with Charlotte. It uses a cup to cradle one nose of the Striker Unit and a clip to hold it further up. Oddly enough, I find the figure stands a little better if I don’t actually clip it to the leg, but rather just rest it there.

I don’t know why it took me so long to come back to this line. I was very pleased with my Charlotte Yeager figure and this one makes me just as happy. In addition to enjoying the anime a lot, I really dig the contrast on these figures between the cute girl designs and the hyper realistic military hardware. The sculpt and paint on this figure are both remarkably good, especially for a piece in this price range. Yup, at $25 shipped, I’ll buy figures like this all day long and worry about where I’m going to find room for them later.